Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sexy

Elderly Ohio woman findsfawn in her flower garden,beats it to death with shovel.

Let me begin, however immodestly, by saying this is going to be a really “sexy” essay. In the course of pursuing my hobby (collecting sex tips on the covers of womens’ magazines) I have discovered another phenomenon I find of considerable interest, the use of the adjective, “sexy.” It seems that nowadays virtually everything can be described as sexy. Without even trying I have discovered sexy picnics, sexy photos, sexy stocks, sexy strapless dresses, sexy dreams, sexy summer styles, sexy pets, sexy legs, sexy arms, sexy baths, sexy losers, sexy guests, sexy people, sexy pictures, crazy sexy cancer tips, sexy books, sexy strappy sandals, sexy armpits, and an absolute obsession with sexy hair. I am reasonably certain, although I have not stumbled across them yet, sexy eyes, sexy hands, sexy thighs, sexy buns, sexy shoes, sexy handbags, sexy cars, sexy sandwiches, sexy pizza, sexy massages, and I wouldn’t even bet against sexy feet. About the only thing I might feel confident betting against would be sexy insurance policies or bowel movements (I’m not so sure about this latter). In other words, the adjective sexy seems to have little meaning anymore. According to an online dictionary, sexy is supposed to be an adjective for being sexually attractive, sexually suggestive or stimulating. I notice they have now hedged a bit and added a second meaning which is simply attractive or interesting. I believe there is more to it than this. For example, it would be easy, and perfectly acceptable, to speak of attractive hair, or attractive shoes, or interesting handbags and books, along with many other things. But people don’t describe things as interesting or attractive, they prefer to describe them as sexy. Obviously there is something titillating about sexy that goes beyond attractive or interesting. The word sexy seems to be a magical term that brings to mind (however unconsciously) some kind of basic sensuality that is not necessarily even remotely present in what is being described. This seems to hold true even when speaking about things that could not reasonably be considered sexy, stocks, for example, or cancer tips, or pets (questionable, perhaps in some cases). There is also now something called sexpresso stands. I guess this is because the servers are dressed in bikinis and bikinis are, of course, sexually attractive, even though there is little or no chance one would ever engage in actual sex with these dispensers of coffee. We all know, after years of advertising, that sex sells, hence the pictures of scantily clad women leaning over car hoods, riding bicycles, and being featured in ads for just about everything for sale, including sex itself. I guess the adjective sexy, no matter where used, conjures up images that go far beyond the particular item involved. I guess one can only conclude that the use of sexy to describe anything and everything is just part of the American obsession with sex (think Viagra, Enzyte, Cialis, etc., along with rampant pornography and so on). I am bothered with this ubiquitous use of sexy only in the sense that I view it as an example of the increasing impoverishment of our language. I feel pretty confident in predicting that it won’t be too long before there are only two words to describe virtually everything: fucking and sexy. I do not view this as a positive development.

Just another piece of irrelevant trivia? It has now been shown that Dick the Slimy, himself, ordered the CIA to not inform Congress of a secret program that apparently went on for eight years. This was so illegal and/or unconstitutional Panetta stopped it when he first heard about it. So we can add this bit of apparent trivia to the discovery that it was Bush himself who ordered Gonzales to Ashcroft’s hospital bed to get him to sign on to an unconstitutional program. Does anyone care about any of this? Apparently not, least of all the Obama administration. Congress is too busy trying to figure out how they can change our health care system without actually changing anything, that is, when they are not trying to figure out if Michael Jackson should be given a Congressional Medal or something, or Saint Ronnie’s face should be carved on Mt. Rushmore. And Karl Rove was grilled for eight hours the other day about his potential role in the Department of Justice scandal, but so what, we’ll probably never hear about it again. All this will just disappear along with the other infinite number of scandals that occurred during the Bush/Cheney nightmare years. The powers that be know the American public has an attention span of only a few minutes at most, and the memory of amnesiacs. War crimes? What war crimes? Lies? What lies? Elephant? What elephant? And so it goes. I am beginning to conclude that Barack Obama is not really our White (and Black) Knight after all. I’m pretty sure that if he fails to get a “Public Option,” after failing to prosecute Bush/Cheney, his public esteem will probably be pretty much finished.